Geraldine Ferraro, the first American woman to be the Vice-Presidential candidate on a major party national ticket, died today. A former Democratic Congresswoman from New York, she was Walter Mondale’s running mate in the 1984 election. As a child living in the D.C. suburbs at the time, I distinctly remember the excitement of her candidacy (and also that I liked how she’d untraditionally kept her birth name rather than using her husband’s name, which was even more unusual in the 80s than it is today). Although Mondale was defeated by the incumbent, Ronald Reagan, in a landslide, Ferraro’s candidacy made that otherwise forgettable election a historic one. Despite bad publicity later in her life—a scandal involving her husband’s business dealings, racist remarks about Barack Obama’s candidacy—she has an undeniably important role in US history.
And yes, it’s fucking ridiculous that it was 25 years before another woman ran on the national ticket—and even more fucking ridiculous given how unqualified and anti-woman that candidate was. The US still lags badly behind the rest of the world when it comes to nominating women for the highest executive offices. Ferraro established a precedent that has only barely been followed, even as women have affected social change in so many other ways.
PS: You may enjoy this video of Ferraro calling out George H.W. Bush for his patronizing mansplaining during the 1984 Vice Presidential debate.
To me Ferraro represents everything that is wrong with feminism. It seems to me that she has only ever been about ensuring that White women became the equal of White men and I see nothing to celebrate about that. She was hardly a trailblaizer and instead affirmed many of the racism tropes that continue to plague WOC today.
I remember that election. Politics were always big in our house growing up. My mother had always told my sister and I that we could do anything, be anything, try anything we wanted. I don’t even know what her politics were, or how she changed in the years since. To me, she’s been and always will be a symbol of possibility.
*by the way, my sister was 9 and I was 7 – and Mom never missed an opportunity to tell us to never let anyone tell us we couldn’t do something because we were GIRLS.
Of course you see her as a symbol of possibility, she wanted equality for White women.
I remember how proud I was as a woman when Ferraro was nominated. She was tough and unafraid to speak out clearly on our issues. Her later problems don’t take away from the importance of that moment.
Yes they do. And they weren’t later problems, the woman was a racist. Do you think that is something that suddenly came into creation when Obama decided to run for president? Don’t be naive. Racism is taught to White children from birth and she chose to embrace it because it gave her privilege. That is not a life worth celebrating.
When Ferraro was running as VP, it was the first time it was a POSSIBILITY in my mind that a woman could end up that high in US government. I’d wondered as a kid why England got Thatcher and the US never even had a major party woman candidate.
I thought at the time it was the beginning of more equality for women in the higher offices. But there was such a lag it just became so depressing.
So I look back on Ferraro’s VP candidacy as a time of eye opening excitement for my young self.
yeah, I think calling her remarks about Obama “ill-advised” and “bad publicity” is going a bit too gently, and Renee is correct to ask for a more critical look at that incident. Nobody “advised” her to make those remarks- she chose to do so. And “bad publicity” makes it sound like the only thing wrong was that she got called out on her remarks. I would suggest editing the post to reflect that that was a real problem, even while we can respect and acknowledge the significance she had as the first female major-party VP candidate.
just to add to my earlier comment- Shakesville did a good job of balancing this, I thought. http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2011/03/rip-geraldine-ferraro.html Melissa acknowledged the racism problem while honoring the positive part of her legacy too.
My point is that Ferraro’s nomination made the world different for all women, regardless of her personal failings. My focus is on the way women changed because of that moment.
We live in a racist country, Renee. How do we acknowledge that while being open about the ugly sides of our public figures? I’m not being snarky here. This is a genuinely troubling question. I bet if you investigate LBJ even a tiny bit, you’ll find that he was exactly the good old boy he seemed to be in terms of his personal relations with people of color. And yet, he was responsible for the Civil Rights Act.
On a different level, most great western artists were anti-Semites. Should I, as a Jew, deny myself the pleasures of their work because of that?
@Jess: Agreed. Changed.
@Renee: I don’t think there’s a single white politician in this country that isn’t where they are because of white privilege. Hell, there’s not a single white PERSON in this country who isn’t where they are because of white privilege. So yes, Ferraro is obviously part of the white power structure, just like every man who ran for VP before her—and everyone who’s run for that office since her.
I don’t think we can completely disregard her place in women’s history because of her racist comments. Unfortunately, most politicians, like most people, are a mixed bag of positive achievements and ugly views/behavior. Ted Kennedy killed a woman and was never prosecuted…but he was one of the best champions of women’s rights Congress ever had. That bothers me tremendously. So does the fact that Jesse Jackson used anti-Semitic slurs in public and buys into the usual bigotry that powerful, secretive Jews run the media. But I don’t dismiss them or their trailblazing or the positive aspects of their careers based on that, either.
I’m not trying to excuse what Ferraro said…I just think that saying that she doesn’t deserve any recognition at all isn’t the right response either. I wrote this post really quickly yesterday before I left home and I probably should have phrased it differently or done a longer post with more discussion of the negatives, but i didn’t have time and just went for the highlights without enough attention paid to the lowlights. Reading these comments, I realize that was a mistake.
I was 11 when Ferraro was nominated, and although I remember recognizing the historical significance of that, I also remember not expecting her nomination to really bust down the door for women in politics. I guess I was cynical even at an early age.
Unfortunately, her behavior during the ’08 election really damaged her legacy in my eyes. The race baiting…yeah, that. I also remember watching her doing some commentary, and actually yelling “oh shut up, Geraldine!” at the TV because she was going on and on about Sarah Palin, and how all women should support her simply because she is a woman. Ugh.
@BeckySharper
It just seems to me that women’s movement always seems to find a way to hold onto its White sheroes no matter the damage they do to POC. When she thought about a woman president, she didn’t mean a WOC president but a White one and that is not progressive; it’s divisive. It sends the message that our shoulders are built for White women stand on so that they can achieve their goals and I refuse to celebrate that.
I won’t disagree that every single person has White privilege but I think there needs to be a distinction because there are those that actively attempt to combat that privilege and Geraldine simply was not one of those people.
In terms of Jessie Jackson, you do realize that his legacy has been forever tarnished and the Black community is well aware of what he has said in multiple instances.
@Renee: It just seems to me that women’s movement always seems to find a way to hold onto its White sheroes no matter the damage they do to POC. Yeah, much as I dislike hearing that, I think it’s often true. I definitely don’t think Ferraro actively attempted to combat that privilege—but in that way, she was basically exactly the same as her white male counterparts. I think whiteness is the problem here, and I honestly don’t see any way that any white female candidate will ever be able to detach herself from it completely.
As for Jesse Jackson…and I realize this is wandering off topic…I never got the sense that his legacy was permanently tarnished, either with the black community or the media or the white community. After his comments about “hymies” in 1984, he went on to run for president in 1988 with even greater success—he won seven Democratic primaries and four caucuses–served in the Senate (albeit in a non-voting job representing DC), and still shows up frequently on cable news, especially during the 2008 election (where he also didn’t do himself any favors with his comments about Obama). Being an anti-Semite didn’t seem to damage his career too badly, and I suspect his anti-Semitism will be mentioned when he dies but overshadowed by his more historic achievements, not unlike Ferraro and her racist comments.